At 40 and she is adopting twins? She's crazy

At 40 and she adopting twins? She’s crazy
by Jane Ballback
Holt International
Based in Eugene, Oregon

[Are you crazy?] My friends were too polite to say that to me, but I am often asked why I adopted twins? There are several good reasons for that. The idea first came from the social worker who knew I wanted more than one child. She probably got the idea because I am a twin myself. I was, and remain very grateful for this suggestion.

When I first began to think about adoption, I only thought about adopting one child. I figured I could handle that. As I was beginning the adoption process my own mother died. As usual my twin sister and I comforted each other a great deal as we went through the process of loss and grieving. That’s when I began to think about how incredibly alone this one adopted child would be — especially since our family was small, older, and mostly childless.

I never regretted the decision to adopt twins. The first night my husband and I brought the boys home we were greatly overwhelmed and not sure if we were up to the task. It was my “twin experience” that helped us through that first night.

By the time we got the boys home after picking them up at the Los Angeles International Airport, it was 10 p.m. and they were of course tired, bewildered, and anxious. They had been relinquished by their birth mother, spent time with their foster mothers, and then put on a plane with two new strangers for a very long flight. When we got them home, we did everything we knew how to do…we fed them, changed them and tried to rock them to sleep. Nothing was working, they cried and cried. My husband and I looked at each other at midnight and said, “Do you think we will ever sleep again?” It’s then I remembered that my twin and I slept together in the same crib because my parents could not afford two cribs.

I said, “Let’s push the cribs together and see what happens.” We pushed them together and in about 10 seconds they reached between the bars, held each other’s hands, and promptly fell asleep.

As I think back about my boy’s adoption experience, I can see that they had a different experience than other adopted children because they always had a member of their birth family right with them. I do think that it made their transition, adjustments, and lives easier than it is for most adopted children. They remain today, each other’s best friend.

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